Katherine Ward, center, pets a baby pig held by Mark Watrud during a tour of Mann Valley Farm in Camp Badger Exploring Engineering program at University of Wisconsin-River Falls Wednesday July 10, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Sophia Cole, left, was the first in her group to ask if they could pet the cows during a tour of a farm in the Camp Badger Exploring Engineering program at University of Wisconsin-River Falls Wednesday July 10, 2013. Eighth-grade students tour various companies and engage in a variety of activities connected to engineering during the one-week residential camp. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Eighth grade students learn about the GPS (Global Positioning System) on a Case-IH tractor on Mann Valley Farm, the university's lab farm, in Camp Badger Exploring Engineering program at University of Wisconsin-River Falls Wednesday July 10, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

A whole array of career possibilities exists when it comes to engineering, and three dozen eighth-graders got a taste of it last week.

Now in its third year at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Camp Badger Exploring Engineering introduced the teens to several engineering fields at locations throughout the area — such as Xcel Energy’s Allen S. King Generating Station in Oak Park Heights, the Stillwater Lift Bridge and Delta Air Lines at the Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport.

“My parents showed me it, and I thought it looked really amazing,” 13-year-old Eric Hatfull of Woodbury said of the camp after touring a UW-River Falls working farm Wednesday.

Eric, who is entering eighth grade at Lake Middle School in Woodbury, said he was attracted to the idea of spending a week around kids and adults interested in math and science. He and the other campers were required to submit a recommendation from a math or science teacher and write an essay before they were accepted.

“A lot of these kids might be the smartest kids in their class,” said Dave Nelson, a science teacher at Verona Area High School in Verona, Wis., who has helped lead students in the program for the past eight years. “We bring them together and say, ‘It’s OK to be smart.’ ”

Nelson said the camp, which started at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998, has been growing over the years, especially among girls.

While engineering has traditionally been a male-dominated field, girls now make up nearly 50 percent of the children who attend the camps at the Madison and River Falls locations, he said.

Getting more girls interested in engineering has been a goal of the camp, said Dean Olson, associate dean of UW-River Falls’ College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. He added, however, that potential engineers of both genders are needed to meet the demands of employers, and there’s currently a shortage of students studying for jobs in the field.

“We try to get them interested in the eighth grade, so by the time they get to college, they think about it as a career,” Olson said.

The camp works to expose the teens to as many different kinds of engineering as possible. From about 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day, the students are touring engineering-related workplaces and doing activities.

Even when the campers are doing things such as rock climbing, bowling or building paper rockets, there’s an educational component.

“Certainly there’s fun, but then we try to connect it back to the science,” said Angela Whitaker, coordinator for the River Falls camp.

“It’s not your traditional textbook-in-the-classroom learning,” she said. “It really works well for today’s young people to be able to get their hands on things and ask questions in an environment that’s more casual.”

Eric said his favorite part of the camp through Wednesday was visiting Xcel’s coal-fired plant in Oak Park Heights.

“I really liked looking in the window and seeing the giant purple fireball,” he said.

Eric wants to be an engineer, and the camp is a great way for kids to explore whether it might be the right career for them, he said. He called the camp a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” because of all the facilities campers get to visit.

“I think it’s really amazing what some people can accomplish through engineering,” Eric said. “Because engineers do the impossible.”

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